A LETTER FROM PARIS.
t is a sunny summer afternoon. The New York pavements are blistering in the heat, and even Broadway looks half deserted. Up-town, brown stone mansions are hermetically sealed for the season, the "salt of the earth" are drinking the waters at Saratoga, gazing at the trembling rapids of Niagara, or disporting themselves on the beach at Long Branch. The workers of the earth still burrow in their city holes, through heat, and dust, and din, and glare, and among them Richard Gilbert.
He sits alone this stifling August afternoon, in his down-town office. The green shades that do their best to keep out the white blinding glare and fail, are closed. The windows stand wide, but no grateful breeze steals in. He sits at his desk in a loose linen coat, multitudinous documents labelled, scattered, and tied up before him. But it is a document that does not look legal, that is absorbing his attention. It is a letter, and the envelope, lying beside him on the floor, bears the French postmark. He sits and re-reads with a very grave and thoughtful face. "It is queer," he is thinking, "uncommonly queer. She must be an adventuress, and a clever one. Of course she has wheedled him into making a new will, and the lion's share will go to herself. Hum! I wonder what Thorndyke will say. Come in."
He pushes the paper away, and answers a discreet tap at the door.
"Lady and gentleman to see you, sir," announces a clerk and the lady and gentleman enter.
"Hope we don't disturb you, squire," says the gentleman, and Mr. Gilbert rises suddenly to his feet. "Me and Hetty, we thought as how it would keinder look bad to go back without droppin' in. Hot day, squire—now ain't it?"
"My dear Miss Kent—my dear Uncle Reuben, this is an unlooked-for pleasure. You in the city, and in the blazing month of August. What tempted you?"
"Well, now, blamed if I know. Only Hetty here, she's bin sorter ailin' lately, and old Dr. Perkins, he said a change would do her a heap of good, and Hetty, she'd never seen New York, and so—that's about it. Squire! we've had a letter."
He says it abruptly, staring very hard straight before him. Aunt Hetty fidgets in her chair, and Richard Gilbert's pale, worn face grows perhaps a shade paler.
"A letter," he repeats; "from her?"
"From her. Two letters, if it comes to that. One from this here town last Christmas—t'other from foreign parts a week ago. I want to show 'em to you. Here's number one."
He takes a letter in an envelope from his pocket, and hands it to the lawyer. It seems almost a lifetime ago, but the thrill that goes through Richard Gilbert at sight of that writing still!
"Last Christmas," he says glancing at the postmark, a shade of reproach in his tone. "And you never told me!"
"I never told you, squire. It ain't a pleasant sort of thing to talk about, least of all to you. She doesn't deserve a thought from you, Mr. Gilbert—"
The lawyer stopped him with a gesture.
"I have forgiven her long ago," he answers; "she did not care for me. Better she should fly from me before marriage than after. Thank Heaven she is alive to write at all."
He opens the note. It is very short.
"Dear Aunt Hetty—Dear Uncle Reuben—Dear Uncle Joe—if you will let me, unworthy as I am, still call you by the dear old names. This is the third time I have written since I left home, but I have reason to think you never received the first two letters. I wrote then, as I write now, to beg you on my knees for forgiveness. Oh, to see your dear faces once more—to look again on the peaceful old home. But it cannot be. What shall I say of myself? I am well—I am busy—I am as happy as I deserve, or can ever expect to be. I am safely sheltered in a good man's house. I have been to blame, but oh, not so much as you think. Some day I will come to you and tell you all. Yours,
"Norine.
"P. S.—He is well. I have seen him since I came to New York twice, though he has not seen me. May the good God bless him and forgive me.
"N. K. B."
Richard Gilbert read that postscript and turned away his head. He had been near her, then, twice, and had never known it. And she cared for him enough to pray for him still.
"Here's the other," said Reuben Kent; "that came a week ago."
He laid a large, foreign-looking letter on the desk, with many stamps, and an Italian postmark.
"From Florence," the lawyer said; "how can she have got there?"
It was as short as the first.
"She was well. Foreign travel had done wonders for her health and spirits. She was with kind friends. Impossible to say when she would return, but always, whether at home or abroad, she was their loving niece, Norine Bourdon."
That was all. Very gravely the lawyer handed them back.
"Well, squire," Mr. Kent said, "what do you think?"
"That I am unutterably glad, and thankful to know she is alive and well, and with friends who are good to her. It might have been worse—it might have been worse."
"You believe these letters, then?"
"Undoubtedly I believe them. She is travelling as companion, no doubt, to some elderly lady. Such situations crop up occasionally. I see she gives you no address to which to write."
"I don't know that I should care to write if she did. You may forgive her, squire, but by the Lord Harry! I aint got that far yet. If she didn't run away with young Thorndyke, what did she run away at all for?"
"Because she cared so little for me, that facing the world alone was easier than becoming my wife. We won't talk of it, Mr. Kent. How long do you remain in town?"
Uncle Reuben rose.
"We go to-day, thank fortin'. How you, all of you, manage to live in such a Babel beats me! Can't you strike work, Mr. Gilbert, and run down to see us this blazin' summer weather?"
Mr. Gilbert shook his head with a smile.
"I am afraid not. I am very busy; I find hard work does me good. Well, good-by, old friend. I am sincerely glad to have read those letters—sincerely glad she is safe and well."
Then they were gone, and Richard Gilbert sat down alone in the hot, dusty office. But the dusty office faded away, and in its place the rich greenness of meadows came, the sweet, new-mown hay scented the air, green trees and bright flowers surrounded him instead of dry-as-dust legal tomes. And fairer, brighter, sweeter than all, came floating back the exquisite face of Norine, the dark eyes gleaming, the white teeth sparkling, the loose hair blowing, the soft mouth laughing. And once she had promised to be his wife!
"Mr. Thorndyke, sir?"
The voice of his clerk aroused him. The fairy vision faded and fled, and Richard Gilbert, in his grimy office, looked grimly up into the face of Laurence Thorndyke.
"How do, Gilbert?" says Mr. Thorndyke, nodding easily; "hope I don't intrude. Was loafing down town, and thought I would just drop in and see if there was any news yet from the old man."
Mr. Thorndyke has lost none of the easy insouciance that sits upon him so naturally and becomingly. He is in faultless Broadway-afternoon- promenade costume, but he is not quite as good-looking as he used to be. His handsome face looks worn and tired, dissipated, and a trifle reckless, and the old flavor of wine and cigars hangs about him still. He draws a chair towards him, and sits astride upon it his arms folded over the back.
"The old man?" Mr. Gilbert repeats, still more grimly. "You refer to Mr. Darcy, I presume?"
"Who else. To Darcy, of course—and be hanged to him. Any news yet?"
"There is news, Mr. Thorndyke. Will you be kind enough, in talking of my old and valued friend,—and yours once,—to speak a little more respectfully?"
"A little more fiddle-dee-dee!" retorts Mr. Thorndyke. "Confound the old bloke, I say again! What business has he cutting up the way he has cut up ever since my marriage? I did everything I could to please him—I leave it to yourself, Gilbert, I did everything I could to please him. He wanted me to marry Helen. Well, haven't I married Helen? He wanted us to go with him to Europe in May. Didn't we come back from the South in April, to go with him in May as per agreement? And what do we find? Why, that the venerable muddle-head has started off on his own hook, with old Liston and some girl that he's taken in—adopted, or that bosh—a niece of Liston's. Started off without a word—without one blessed word of excuse or explanation to Helen or me. That's four months ago, and not a letter since. Then you talk of respect! By Jove, sir, I consider myself—Helen considers herself, shamefully treated. And here we are broiling alive in New York this beastly hot weather, instead of doing the White Mountains, or Newport, or somewhere else, where a man can get a breath of air, waiting for a letter that never comes. You've heard from him, you say—now what has the old duffer to say for himself?"
"He has nothing to say for himself. I have not heard from him. I said I had heard of him. How is Mrs. Thorndyke?"
"Well enough in health—devilish cross in temper. The old story—I'm a wretch, drink too much, gamble too much, spend too much, keep too late hours. Tell you what, Gilbert, matrimony's a fraud. Whilst I thought Nellie was the old man's pet and I was his heir, it was all well enough; blessed if I know what to think now. Are you going to tell me what you have heard of him?"
In silence, and with a face of contemptuous disgust, Mr. Gilbert takes up the French letter, points to a column, and watches him. This is what Mr. Thorndyke, with a face of horror, reads:
"I presume you know that your old friend and client, Hugh Darcy, died here two days ago. The bulk of his fortune, I hear, is left to the beautiful young widow, Mrs. Liston, whom he had legally adopted. She takes his name, and with her own rare loveliness, and Darcy's half million, Mrs. Liston-Darcy is destined to make no ordinary sensation when she returns to New York."
